Delacon Performing Nature Symposium

Austrian company Delacon – a pioneer in the production and marketing of phytogenic feed additives – brought 250 people together at its Performing Nature Symposium in Greece. On behalf of World Poultry, Feed Mix Editor Emmy Koeleman was present.

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Helmut Dedl, President of the company, offically opened the symposium by briefly looking back on the 30 years that Delacon exists. "We were the first to use the term phytogenic feed additives," said Dedl.

Prof John Hodges from Austria kicked off the speaker session by talking about "bounderies in animal production". Being an animal geneticist himself, he stressed that the agricultural sector should be careful in the application of GM crops and animal cloning.

Dennis DiPietre, pig consultant from the US explained the audience that we should not work with averages anymore, but pay more attention to the individual animals. "To be able to create a full value pig we have to decrease the variation within a batch of pig," he explained. (Photo: Peter Bedo)

Neivaldo Burin from a large poultry integrator in Brazil (C. VALE Cooperativa Agroindustrial) explained that the Brazilian poultry industry still struggles with a deficient infrastructure system, scarce credit, very high interest rates, very high tax burden and customs barriers.

Dr Jan Dirk van der Klis from Schothorst Feed Research in the Netherlands explained that new EU regulation (such as the welfare directive for broilers and layers) will have a large effect on how we feed our animals.

Wilhelm Windisch from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria gave a clear summary on the current alternatives for antibiotic growth promoters. He mentioned organic acids, probiotics, phytogenics, enzymes, functional fibres and heavy metals as the current options.

"The last six months we hear a lot about the future ban on AGPs in the US and we notice that the pressure on the sector in increasing. Many feed companies and research institutes are increasing their efforts to test alternative products such as phytogenics, so when the ban is implemented we are ready to serve the market," Dari Brown from Land O'Lakes in the US explained.

Lucas Cypriano from Eurotec in Brazil gave a summary about the synergy phytogenics can have with antibiotic growth promoters. “Having a phytogenic product often is used with an AGP when it is still allowed, and we see a synergetic effect in combining the two”, Cypriano explained. However, it still remains unclear why this interaction occurs. Brazilian poultry farmers not always use a combination treatment of an AGP and a phytogenic product, but pig farms in Brazil are always using a combination.

Jurgen Zentek from the Free University in Berlin, Germany addressed that the weaning period in pigs is a very stressful event, and in turn give a drop in immune responses. "Nutritionists should be aware of this, and add specific immune boosting additives at this stage of the production cycle," he said.

Stefanie Gartner from Germany explained the results of a trial that looked at a phytogenic product on gut immunity.

Carlos Pineiro from Spain pointed out some of the remedies to minimize the ammonia output from livestock production. Livestock produces 37% of the total global methane output, 65% of the total global N oxide and 64% of the total global ammonia output. "As a livestock industry we therefore have to take our responsibility to find solutions to bring these numbers down," he said. (Photo: Peter Bedo)

According to Prof Dr Gerhard Flachowsky we sometimes draw the wrong conclusions regarding CO2 footprints from animals, "simply because we still don't know all the details," he stated.

Helmut Dohler gave an update on the regulations on emmissions from livestock production "Within the framework of agri and environmental policies we need to search for new technologies in the animal feed sector."

Some time for relaxation during the coffee breaks. Head, neck and shoulders were give a firm massage.

A large part of the participants came from Asia. (Photo: Peter Bedo)

Participants came from 25 different countries. (Photo: Peter Bedo)

Full of new knowledge about the use of phytogenic additives in animal feed, the people left the beautiful island of Crete.